The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has expressed its support for the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA)’s announcement that it has made another step towards developing its central data collection after HEC's From Bricks to Clicks recommendations. HESA has put out a call for a partner in its Data Futures Programme as part of its move towards modernising the use of data in the sector.

This comes after the release of the HEC’s From Bricks to Clicks inquiry report in January which recommended that “HESA should take responsibility for rationalising the data collection process across the sector, working in partnership with others.” It also recommended “HESA, Jisc and Universities UK should work together to develop a sector-wide strategy for excellent and innovative data management. This strategy will support and enable sharing and collaboration between institutions.”

The HESA’s move shows clear evidence that the Agency is aiming to work in partnership with others to develop a data collection, plus making moves to develop a data strategy for the sector to enable data sharing.

The team at the HEC is looking forward to monitoring the progress of learning analytics in the higher education sector and is delighted to see that its recommendations have been cited as one of the key reasons for this move, and gladly supports the development of a central data bank created by working with partners.